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Monday, 10 December 2012

Readers' Dozen: Horizonless

I doubt this is going to become a regular thing here, but I rather enjoyed seeing everybody's Texas pictures a while back. So, since we've been talking about Eliot Porter and Charlie Cramer, both of whom often shoot "horizonless" photos, I thought I'd ask to see if anybody has what they think is a cool picture with no horizon. (Mike Chisholm, you'd better send something!)

If you'd like to play, send me 1–3 JPEGs, 800 pixels wide, saved in the sRGB colorspace, and I'll pick a baker's dozen of them and post them below. Don't forget to tell me what you want your byline to be, or I'll just use the sender name on the email. The only condition is that it has to be horizonless.

[UPDATE: Could be I'm just being selfish. Wanted to look at some pictures today; got my wish. I've gotten about 200 pictures so far and I could post almost any of them. I should mention that this is not a contest and the ones I'll throw up for public delectation are just things that grabbed me for some reason or looked good together, or provided variety, and aren't necessarily the "best" ones, whatever that means. Thanks to everyone for sending!]

Mike

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Potomac. Photo by Sandy Rothberg.

By Tim Parkin

Vosges Mountains, France. Photo by Arne Croell.

By Tyler Wescott

By Kazi Ushioda

By John Krumm

By Gus Ginge

By Rob Atkins

By Ken Rahaim

By Bronislaus Janulis

Václavské Place, Prague, 2006. Photo by Zoltán Istvánffy.

By Michael Trupiano

By Ed Cornachio

By Jon Shiu

By Michael Frye

By S. William Bishop

By Peter Pflasterer (Polaroid transfer)

By Brendan M. Devlin (Palladium contact print)

Tippecanoe Riverbank, Indiana, 2005. Photo by Karl Knize.(Shot with a Graflex Series C with a 165mm ƒ/2.5 Cooke lens.Karl says, "I look at this shot and it does/doesn't have a horizondepending upon how much I've been drinking....")

I agree--Mike Chisholm had better submit something! When you posted Porter’s image of the redbuds (I almost fainted when I saw that gorgeous thing—thank you for showing it to us), I thought immediately of Mike’s work. Like no one else I know, Mike manages to take the overlooked and seemingly mundane little corners of his world and utterly transform them into subtle, sublime rectangles (or squares) of beauty with his attention to light, shadow, texture, shape and color. My favorite images of his (and those are way too numerous to count or reference) are ones that create a sort of abstraction with all of the supporting elements arranged beautifully and flattened into 2-D space. With just a shift of focus, one can switch from enjoying the abstractness to studying the actual objects/vegetation/buildings, etc., which are interesting in their own right. His horizonless landscapes are some of my favorites.

I have to admit that when I first looked at Mike’s website, I didn’t fully appreciate his images. It didn’t take long, though, for me to get those familiar goosebumps that come when I’ve managed to look at enough of someone’s work to suddenly “get” what they are about and to start enjoying each image more deeply in the context of all the others. Mike Chisholm’s stuff is the perfect antidote when I get thoroughly bored and annoyed by looking at images on sites like Photo.net (everyone trying *so* hard to produce the same slick images of the same subjects, or veering into over-the-top drama). His pictures have such a deliciously refreshing, unforced and "natural" feeling about them, yet I know how carefully he must work to create his images. (I don't think it's possible to develop such a repeatable and identifiable style without having a deliberate approach and guiding aesthetic.)

Don't forget Frederick Sommer, who created some amazing horizonless meditations. I saw an interview with him on the interwebs (lost the link, but should be findable) in which he said he started doing them because the Kodak film he had had flaws that could be hidden in printing if there were no skies.

It's interesting how other people have interpreted the "no horizon" guideline. I took a hardline view with my own (rather poor) submissions, omitting even false horizons like waterlines and treelines, and really wish I hadn't now...

At first I looked through some shots that looked down (common for me) and some of enclosed spaces, but then I ran across a selection that looked up, and realised that a horizon is where up and down meet, so without that joint I was OK. So here's a "flat" space image for you. And one that defies all notions of sharpness too. ;-)